Letter from
Lhasa, number 186. (Service 2009): Trotsky
by Roberto Abraham Scaruffi
Service, R., Trotsky. A Biography, MacMillan, 2009.
(Service 2009).
Robert Service
There is a lot of
hagiographies. This work is not such and with additional advantages.
The research on the young
Leiba Bronstein and his family is of certain interest and utility. Political
writers, alias political militants or
para-militants, generally prefer to avoid any serious psychological evaluation.
What, on the contrary, may be found here.
There is even an explicit
understanding of the tricked game politics is, and “revolutionary” politics
even more is:
“Trotsky was not unusual
among leading political émigrés: most of them underestimated the depth of
police penetration and manipulation of their activities.”
(Service 2009, p. 73)
The Second International
was basically Austro-German and also French. In the manipulation of Russian
revolutionaries, there was also English interest although English have always
been less bureaucratic and more agile in the manipulation of revolutionary
movements. The Russian area was, in first instance, bordering and inevitably
clashing with the Austrian and German influence areas. If Great Britain was
growingly anxious of the German power, it should be in some way allied with
France and Russia, although with some strategic vision that the today allies
may become the tomorrow enemies.
When the war came and the
Second International broke up according to national lines, it was clear
“internationalism” was only a tale and that the “workers’ movements” were just
extensions of the relative States/“governments” (alias Secret Police Services and “bourgeoisies”).
A sight of the expensive
life abroad of certainly not only Trotsky may be found, for instance, here:
“The move to Vienna put
them back in touch with old friends. (...) Trotsky also renewed his
acquaintance with Austrian Marxist leaders such as Victor Adler and his son
Friedrich Adler. He became something of a man about town, regularly taking coffee
at the Café Central. Whether he ate its famous chocolate cakes is not recorded.
While drinking coffee and reading the morning newspaper, though, he could met
up with all the Viennese luminaries of the day (...). Trotsky preferred central
Europe to the rest of the continent. Berlin in his eyes was infinitely
preferable to London, and he did not have much time for Paris; but it was
Vienna that he truly loved. Only Odessa exercised a similar enchantment upon
him.”
(Service 2009, p. 106-107)
Not only “the families”,
“the Stalin’s robberies” and revenues from journalistic activities should have
paid the bills. Nobody really helps “refugees”, and not at that level of costs,
if there are not direct interests.
There is nothing epic about
his reaching Switzerland from Vienna at the German declaration of war on
Russia. Thanks to the author (Service 2009, p. 135-136), we see with which power networks he was in touch,
despite he had no real organisation at his orders, he was not a great
intellectual (not a real theoretician or scholar) but only a “brilliant”
agitprop with some connection. Trotsky, not differently from a lot of other
“successful” people, was just a politicking operator.
On, 19 November 1914, from
the neutral Switzerland he moved to France, a Russian ally, or an enemy of the
Russian enemies.
Form a politological point
of view, the “pure internationalism” of Trotsky, opposed to the more political
defeatism of Lenin, may be evaluated in various ways. A subtle nationalism,
naïveté, a moral or moralistic position, some contingent convenience,
equidistance or equiproximity?
“The two belligerent
coalitions were really fighting over markets, territory and global domination.
According to Trotsky, this made it nonsense for Nasha zarya to blame everything on the German Junkers. At the same
time, he could not abide Lenin’s proposal for a political campaign for Russia’s
military defeat. Even many Bolsheviks who opposed the war thought this
fanatical and senseless. Like Trotsky, they called for criticism of all
belligerent powers at one and the same time. Trotsky prided himself on being an
internationalist. To him, Lenin’s manoeuvres smacked of inverted nationalism.”
(Service 2009, p. 139)
Why did Stalin overcome
Trotsky?
“Stalin was psychologically
cleverer.”
(Service 2009, p. 296)
One may
see or re-see in this book, the psychological and political subordination of
Trotsky to “Leninism” and “Stalinism” in office (in “government”). His servility
relatively to semi-Asiatic political “culture” did not pay personally as well
as it did not pay for Soviet Union. Trotsky worked for creating and stabilising
a despotic power and, when there were not anymore real enemies could threaten the
new regime, he did nothing for people happiness instead of people bestial oppression
and self-oppression.
After the death of Lenin:
“His public self-abnegation
was as extreme as it was uncharacteristic, and he was to prove idiosyncratic in
his Leninism in the years ahead. Several leading supporters anyway thought his
apology a tactical misjudgement: they willed him to stand proud against his
adversaries in the leadership. Trotsky thought caution was required. The
ascendant leaders were pleased about his contrition and allowed him to keep his
seats in the Politburo and the Central Committee.”
(Service 2009, p. 324)
So, they could fry him
slowly and progressively destroy him, de
facto with his same cooperation. Instead of using the Army, in January 1925
Trotsky resigned as Defence Minister. He had not any more power.
Stalin later rewarded the
militarist bloc transforming the whole Soviet Union in a big concentration camp
functional to a permanent war economy. Was the Trotsky plan different?
One after the other,
Asiatic Russia liquidates all the western-style Soviet leaders. Asiatic Russia
overcame European Russia. Stalin was the expression of the Asiatic Russia, a Tsarist
without Tsar “Soviet” Russia. That “Tsars” were now formally elected through
the Soviets’ system made no difference.
On 22 February 1929, he
reached, against his will, Istanbul, from south to Odessa.
“The Soviet authorities had
equipped him with funds to the value of US$ 1,500 to facilitate his settling
abroad.” (Service 2009, p. 380). It was what actually he and his family needed for a
month, despite their frugal life.
He got anyway income from
his books. His book royalties financed him and his politics.
“Then on 2 February 1932
the Moscow authorities abruptly revoked his citizenship and rendered Trotsky a
stateless person dependent on the mercy of Mustapha Kemal.”
(Service 2009, p. 410)
Sentenced to death in
occasion of the first Moscow show trial in the summer of 1937, Trotsky was
assassinated from a Stalinist agent, Ramón Mercader, in 1940. Attacked on 20
August 1940, he died the day after.
Would a Trotsky-led Soviet
Union be different? That is not really believable.
Service, R., Trotsky. A Biography, MacMillan, 2009.
